Tuesday, 30 August 2016

After a decade of arguing over words,
commas and full stops, India and the United States have finally inked an
agreement that will allow their militaries to replenish from each other’s
logistic facilities, including bases.

This was signed on Monday on Defence
Minister Manohar Parrikar’s ongoing three-day visit to the United States,
during his sixth meeting with his US counterpart, Defense Secretary Ashton
Carter.

Washington has had to work hard to persuade
New Delhi that the Logistics Support Agreement (LSA), which America has signed
with tens of countries across the world, would not tie India into what it saw
as America’s gung-ho military interventionism.

The document signed today is tailored to reassure
India that it would not be dragged unwillingly into American military
operations. An India-specific text and name --- the Logistics Exchange
Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) --- has provided New Delhi further reassurance.

To pre-empt any criticism of being overly
pro-America, an elaborate defence ministry statement emphasizes: “The Agreement
does not create any obligations on either Party (India or the US) to carry out
any joint activity. It does not provide for the establishment of any bases or
basing arrangements.”

Describing LEMOA as “a facilitating agreement”,
the ministry states that it “would be used exclusively during authorized port
visits, joint exercises, joint training, and humanitarian assistance and
disaster relief efforts.”

The MoD further explains, “Logistics support for
any other cooperative efforts shall only be provided on a case-by-case basis
through prior mutual consent of the Parties, consistent with their respective
laws, regulations and policies.”

Having signed LEMOA, Parrikar will take his time
over two other “foundational agreements” the Pentagon wants --- a Communications and Information Security Memorandum of Agreement
(CISMOA) to allow release of secure radio equipment to India; and a Basic
Exchange and Cooperation Agreement for Geospatial Information and Services
Cooperation (BECA), on digital mapping and survey.

Asked about CISMOA and BECA in his joint
press conference with Carter, Parrikar retorted: “After 12-13 years we have
managed to get the logistics agreement in place. You could see the mistrust.
The logistics agreement was being mistaken for the setting up of bases. So let
me get this logistics agreement in the public domain properly; explain to the
people; then we will definitely go into the other aspects.”

Said Carter, echoing Parrikar on LEMOA:
“That’s a very substantial enabler of our two countries to work together… It’s
not a basing agreement of any kind but it does make the logistics of joint
operations so much easier and so much more efficient.”

Over the last two years, Carter and
Parrikar have built up an unlikely rapport --- the former a defence and
security technocrat and academic; the latter a street-savvy politician, albeit
with an Indian Institute of Technology degree.

Earlier in the day, they together visited
the Pentagon’s 9/11 memorial, where Parrikar paid homage to the 184 victims on
the ground and on American Airlines Flight 77 that was steered into the famous
building by hijackers.

Said Carter to the media: “I have already
spent more time with Minister Parrikar than I have with any other defence
counterpart anywhere in the world”.

Parrikar’s agenda during his three-day visit
includes the US Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUx), the US Cyber
Command (CYBERCOM), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and the
famous 480th Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) Wing near the
CIA headquarters at Langley, Virginia. He will interact with the US defence
industry, and visit the Boeing rotorcraft facility in Philadelphia, where
India’s Chinook helicopters are being assembled.

Carter talked up the convergence of
Washington’s and New Delhi’s interests in the Indo-Pacific, in what he referred
to as a “strategic handshake --- the US reaching west as part of President
Obama’s rebalance to Asia; while India is reaching east as part of Prime
Minister Modi’s “Act East” policy, which will extend India’s reach further into
the broader Indo-Asia-Pacific region.”

Parrikar echoed Carter forthrightly,
stating: “India and the United States have a shared interest in freedom of
navigation and over-flight and uninterrupted commerce as part of a rule-based
order in the Indo-Pacific.”

New Delhi has moved purposefully on
Washington’s designation of India as a “major defence partner” of the US.
Carter revealed on Monday that the Indian government had sent Washington “a
very lengthy, detailed and constructive paper” containing proposals for taking
forward the major defence partnership decision.

Maritime security has emerged as a major
area of convergence, since the inaugural maritime security dialogue in May,
which discussed the implementation of the “Joint Strategic Vision” that
President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Narendra Modi had agreed to in
January 2015. Said Carter: “The inaugural Maritime Security Dialogue in May was
such a success that we agreed to convene another before the end of this year.”

Even as Parrikar and Carter met in
Washington, US Secretary of State, John Kerry; and Secretary for Commerce,
Penny Pritzker, are in Delhi for the Strategic and Commercial dialogue.

After an Australian newspaper began
publishing reams of operational and technical data last week relating to six
Scorpene submarines that will begin joining the Indian Navy next year, there is
grave concern in some quarters. The Scorpene’s vendor, France’s Direction des Constructions Navales Services
(DCNS), told an Australian court that: “this highly valuable document causes a
direct harm to DCNS and its customer”. An American admiral who was its former
top submarine commander in the Pacific puts it simply: “It is never good for an
opponent to have your playbook.” Yet, the Indian Navy has publicly pooh-poohed
the danger and insisted optimistically that the leaked information could
provide no advantage to an enemy. Only after five days of denial did the naval
chief admit on Monday that the leak is of serious concern. Behind the navy’s
blitheness is the logic that compromised submarines are better than no
submarines at all. Having taken 17 years to nurse Project 75 (the Scorpene project)
this far, the admirals worry that the leaks could endanger it now. Anyhow,
submarines sunk in some future war will be someone else’s problem.

The navy must abandon this inward-looking
stance since this is an international issue. The first question to ponder is:
what is driving the Scorpene leaks? There are seven possible answers, some more
probable than others. First, this could be an attempt to change Australia’s
decision, announced in April, to award DCNS a US $38 billion contract to build
12 conventional submarines under its SEA 1000 project. The losing vendors were Japanese
(Mitsubishi/Kawasaki combine) and German (ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems, or TKMS).
Second, this could be Canberra’s ploy to release secrets harmless to Australia
(though not to India) to pressure DCNS into lowering its price. Third, it could
a foreign government stratagem (e.g. China) to scuttle Australia’s SEA 1000
project by portraying DCNS as unreliable. Fourth, it could be a dissatisfied
former customer of DCNS --- e.g. Pakistan, Chile, Brazil and Malaysia, if India
could be removed from the list of potential suspects. Fifth, it could be a
disgruntled DCNS employee, or agent who was removed as a result of Europe’s
recent emphasis on anti-corruption compliance. If this sounds far-fetched,
recall that the killing of 11 DCNS engineers in Karachi by a suicide bomber in
2002 was blamed (by a DCNS-commissioned investigation) on a vengeful agent in
Pakistan who was incensed that his commissions were discontinued. Since then,
many more agents have been de-hired by European defence companies, presumably
including DCNS. Sixth, Washington could have driven the leak to prevent sensitive
American technologies (such as the combat management system, or torpedoes) from
being integrated into a French submarine. Seventh, and last, a rival submarine
manufacturer like TKMS could be discrediting DCNS to boost its own prospects in
India’s impending Project 75I --- a multi-billion dollar project to build six
conventional submarines with air-independent propulsion (AIP), which New Delhi
is currently mulling.

Should New Delhi blacklist DCNS for laxity
in preserving secrecy? Does the navy have a better alternative, or would it be
forced to buy more Russian submarines, increasing its reliance on Moscow, which
has already provided ten of India’s fourteen attack submarines? Of the
alternatives, America only builds nuclear powered boats (as submarines are
referred to), buying Chinese is inconceivable, British submarines are out-dated
and Japanese boats too large and expensive. That leaves only European vendors, predominantly
three --- DCNS, TKMS and Kockums of Sweden.

Meanwhile, very few countries are buying
submarines. The US, Russia, China, UK and Japan all build their own boats.
South Korea and Turkey have also developed indigenous submarine industries.
Brazil and Australia have fixed on DCNS, and are holding course for now. That
leaves Norway, which is looking to buy six submarines; with Poland and Holland
piggybacking on its order with possibly three each of their own. Besides those
12 boats, there is only India’s Project 75I for another six.

With the market depressed, Europe’s
submarine builders face consolidation. Some years ago, TKMS (which owns
Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft, or HDW, which built India’s four Type-209
submarines) bought Swedish shipyard, Kockums --- the industry consensus was that
TKMS wanted to strangle Kockums to eliminate the rival Swedish submarine
industry. A furious Stockholm physically repossessed Kockums in April 2014, and
eventually prevailed upon Swedish defence major, Saab, to buy back Kockums.
That has left TKMS weakened amidst intensifying competition. If it were to lose
the Norwegian tender, having already lost the Australian one, it would probably
have to merge with DCNS to survive. With the French defence budget ($51
billion) significantly larger then Germany’s ($39 billion), Paris will
inevitably, as the continent’s biggest defence buyer, call the shots on
Europe’s defence industry. Inevitably, DCNS will also swallow Saab Kockums,
given that Sweden has ordered just two A-26 submarines and there are no more
orders in sight.

This means that, were India to penalise
DCNS by shifting its custom to TKMS or Saab Kockums, the broad trends of submarine
industry consolidation would probably bring the order back to the DCNS stable.
Even so, there remain key differences between these companies. DCNS, given
France’s Atlantic seaboard, colonial tradition overseas, and Great Power
pretensions, has a “blue water” tradition of building larger submarines,
including nuclear-powered boats. Australia selected DCNS for its SEA 1000
project primarily because it offered a large submarine --- a slightly shortened
version of the nuclear-powered Barracuda, christened the Shortfin Barracuda.
With India signalling a new emphasis on nuclear-powered submarines (aiming at
18 conventional, plus six nuclear powered boats), DCNS would be keen to partner
India in its nuclear submarine programme, just as Russia does. The US Navy is,
by some margin, the global leader in nuclear submarine technology, but will not
part with it for anything.

However, TKMS continues to have relevance
for India. Germany, given its limited coastline along the shallow Baltic and
North Seas, has nurtured a tradition (dating back to its U-boats in World War I
and II) of building smaller submarines with high quality sonars. The Indian
Navy, given the variance in its coastal geography, needs small as well as large
submarines. The former would be essential in the shallow Arabian Sea, where the
waters 25 kilometres from Karachi are just 40 metres deep. In contrast, larger
submarines (including nuclear powered boats) can operate freely in the Bay of
Bengal, where the waters 5 kilometres out from Visakhapatnam are over 3,000
metres deep.

All this suggests that the Scorpene leaks,
damaging though they are for operational security, must be treated from a
strategic as well as a tactical and techno-commercial standpoint. India’s
strategic interests in the Indian Ocean demand a close partnership with Paris,
to complement and balance the US-India relationship. French submarine building
remains important for a navy that is looking beyond blockading Karachi, at blue
water operations across the deep ocean. The challenge before the admirals is to
move beyond reflexive denial and develop a nuanced plan of action that will
cater to all these variables.

Saturday, 27 August 2016

An
important section of the Indian Navy headquarters in New Delhi has changed its
biorhythm to Melbourne time, monitoring The Australian newspaper as it
publishes leaked documents containing the operational secrets of India’s new
Scorpene submarines.

As The
Australian incrementally publishes tranches from the 22,400 pages of sensitive
documents that it indicates were leaked from French shipbuilder, DCNS, naval
planners in Delhi scour them in real time for information that might make
India’s Scorpene submarine fleet sitting ducks in combat.

The newspaper
is redacting the documents it publishes, blacking out data it deems particularly
sensitive. Indian officials, including Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on
Friday, say they are catering for a “best case scenario”, and “worst case
scenario”. The latter encompasses the possibility that the full version of the
documents have fallen into hostile hands, and six Scorpene submarines that will
join the navy’s fleet by 2019 have been operationally compromised.

A
“high-level committee” has been established in the defence ministry to evaluate
the extent of the damage.

Surprisingly,
defence ministry sources say DCNS has not yet responded to an Indian query
about how, when and to what extent Scorpene operational data has been
compromised. With DCNS silent, the navy is comparing the leaked trove of documents,
as they are published in The Australian, with the documents in India.

Yet, the
defence ministry is displaying remarkable tolerance of the leaks from DCNS,
despite those being apparent violations of non-disclosure clauses that form a
part of the Scorpene contract.

“We cannot
say for sure whether DCNS has violated a non-disclosure clause. What happens if
the information was stolen, or hacked from DCNS networks?” argues a MoD official.

Nor is the
defence ministry willing to comment on whether this leak will affect DCNS’s
chances of bagging an order for additional Scorpenes, beyond the six already contracted
under Project 75. Officials say DCNS even remains eligible for Project 75-I ---
India’s proposed purchase of six conventional submarines with air-independent
propulsion (AIP).

“We are
evaluating the situation as information is released”, says an official.

Ministry
officials remain perplexingly sanguine about what analysts world-wide regard as
an extremely worrying leak of data relating to operational capability ---
including electromagnetic frequencies for intelligence gathering, details of
the Scorpene’s sonar system, including the frequency of its various arrays and
approximate acoustic signature, including that of its propeller. Much of the
compromised data is not yet publicly known, since The Australian has published
only a tiny portion of the documents it claims to have.

“A
submarine is a highly customized weapon system. The navy has selected the equipment
for the Indian Scorpene; in fact, some of the weapon systems have not yet been
chosen. The 5-6 year-old data that has been leaked relates to a generic version
of the Scorpene, perhaps the Chilean or Malaysian submarine, not to the
customized Indian vessel”, explains one official.

The Indian
Navy has arrived at this conclusion after reviewing just 13 published pages out
of the 22,400 pages that The Australian claims it has reviewed.

Says
another official, downplaying the leak: “Vendors like DCNS freely supply generic
information to any prospective customer. It is like a Maruti car dealer, who
will supply details of a car to any customer who requests it.”

Asked why
the leaked documents bear the Indian Navy logo, are translated from French into
English, and have each page stamped with the logo “Restricted Scorpene India”; defence
ministry officials explain that could be because DCNS, and other French vendors
like Thales, had customized the documents for India.

That,
however, would indicate that the leaked documents related to the customized
Indian version of the Scorpene.

On the plus
side, New Delhi’s years of delay in choosing weapon systems for the Scorpene
might have worked to the navy’s advantage. The long-range torpedo, a
submarine’s primary weapon, has not yet been selected --- partly because the
vendor chosen earlier was WASS, a subsidiary of the sanctioned Finmeccanica
group.

Other
systems, like electronic warfare equipment and sonar, may have been saved from
exposure because they have been substantially indigenized. The French vendors,
DCNS and Thales, are required to merely provide plug-in slots that will house
the secret Indian equipment.

Thursday, 25 August 2016

Faced with a potentially disastrous
information leak that could blunt the operational edge of six Scorpene
conventional submarines that India is building under licence from French
shipyard, DCNS, the Indian Navy is carefully downplaying concerns.

On Thursday, a day after a reputed Melbourne
daily, The Australian, reported the leak of 22,400 pages of technical
information about India’s Scorpene submarines from DCNS, New Delhi stated: “The
documents that have been posted on the website by an Australian news agency
have been examined and do not pose any security compromise as the vital
parameters have been blacked out.”

The Australian has indeed redacted (blacked
out) sections of the Scorpene documents that it deemed highly sensitive.
However, the documents were made available to The Australian in full, without
redaction. Whoever shared it with the newspaper remains in possession of reams
of technical information about the Scorpene.

Admirals in New Delhi admit there is no way
of knowing where that information has gone. The Australian noted that “the DCNS
documents detail the most sensitive combat capabilities of India’s new $US3 bn
($3.9bn) submarine fleet and would provide an intelligence bonanza if obtained
by India’s strategic rivals, such as Pakistan or China.”

New Delhi admits to this possibility only
reluctantly, stating: “The Government of India, as a matter of abundant
precaution, is also examining the impact if the information contained in the
documents claimed to be available with the Australian sources is compromised.”

Business Standard learnt that Defence
Minister Manohar Parrikar passed orders on Wednesday evening to urgently pursue
the matter with the French side. The defence ministry announced today: “The
Indian Navy has taken up the matter with Director General of Armament of the
French Government expressing concern over this incident and has requested the
French Government to investigate this incident with urgency and share their
findings with the Indian side. The matter is being taken up with
concerned foreign governments through diplomatic channels to verify the
authenticity of the reports.”

Off-the-record, a senior Indian Navy
official scoffs at The Australian’s claim of having accessed 22,400 pages of
Scorpene data. “The newspaper’s webpage carries links to just 13 pages of documentation.
How do we know they have actually seen 22,400 pages? As things stand today, it
is only a claim”, he says.

Another well-informed navy officer avers
that the documents leaked by The Australian do not tally with the Scorpene documentation
DCNS provided to India. “Our analysis suggests the leaked documents relate to
the Scorpenes in service with Malaysia and Chile. There is also data relating
to the Mistral helicopter carrier vessel that Russia is buying. But the
documents we hold are different”, he says.

If that is so, it remains unexplained why
the leaked documents, which are available on The Australian’s website, bear a
red stamp saying: “Restricted Scorpene India”.

Navy officials are also taking pains to
argue --- without having seen all the leaked documents --- that the information
put out consists only of broad technical specifications that are freely available
in commercial documents. They argue that key submarine attributes like “audio
signature”, which is unique to each vessel, remains secret. Furthermore, since
the Scorpene weapons package, including torpedoes and surface attack missiles,
have not yet been fitted, weaponry details could not have been leaked.

Even so, a wary Parrikar has tossed the
ball into the hands of a committee. Said a ministry statement today: “The
detailed assessment of potential impact is being undertaken by a high level
committee constituted by the Ministry of Defence and the Indian Navy is taking
all necessary steps to mitigate any probable security compromise.”

Given how vital the Scorpene is to the
navy’s submarine capability, it is unsurprising the impact of the leak is being
played down. To meet its operational needs, the navy assesses it requires 24-26
submarines. Currently, there are just 13 operational submarines, of which just
8-10 are functional at any given time. The six Scorpenes being built by Mazagon
Dock Ltd, Mumbai (MDL) under Project 75 are, therefore, vital.

Equally vital is the long-delayed Project
75-I, which involves building another six submarines. Every major submarine
builder, including Russia, Sweden, Germany and Japan is aspiring for this
order, as is DCNS. This leak, however, coming on top of a four-year delay and
major cost escalation in building the Scorpene, cannot but damage DCNS’
prospects in India.

Ironically, many are assessing that the
document leak was not aimed at India, but at scuppering DCNS’ USD 38 billion
contract to build the Shortfin Barracuda submarine for the Australian Navy,
which it won in April. The French company said on Wednesday that it might be
the victim of “economic warfare”.

Wednesday, 24 August 2016

A page from the leaked document, with sensitive data redacted by The Australian

By Ajai Shukla

Business Standard, 24th Aug 16

At midnight on Tuesday, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar
was woken up by a phone call to tell him that an Australian newspaper had just reported
the leakage of key operational details of India’s newest submarines, the
Scorpene.

A short while earlier, The Australian, a reputed Melbourne
based daily, had broken the news that 22,400 pages of detailed documents
relating to India’s Scorpene submarines that been leaked, apparently from the
French shipbuilder, DCNS, which is the vendor for India’s six Scorpenes.

The report in The Australian says: “the DCNS documents
detail the most sensitive combat capabilities of India’s new $US3 bn ($3.9bn)
submarine fleet and would provide an intelligence bonanza if obtained by
India’s strategic rivals, such as Pakistan or China.”

Each page of the leaked documents, which are available on
The Australian’s website, is annotated in red with the stamp: “Restricted
Scorpene India”.

Parrikar says, upon learning of the leak at midnight, he
ordered the navy chief personally to inquire into what this meant for the
security of the Scorpene fleet.

Asked whether a formal inquiry was under way, Parrikar
replied: “Let him (the navy chief) first find out all the details. That is a
sort of inquiry ---directly asking a navy chief to find out… and identify what
is (the problem).”

“The available information is being examined at Integrated
Headquarters, Ministry of Defence (Navy) and an analysis is being carried out
by the concerned specialists”, said a defence ministry release on Wednesday
morning.

Asked by Business Standard whether DCNS was in breach of
confidentiality clauses with the Indian Navy, Parrikar stated: “What I
understand is that there is a hacking (from DCNS). We will find out all those
things… maybe in a couple of days we will be able to tell you”.

“It appears that the source of the leak is from overseas and
not in India”, says the defence ministry release.

Warship industry sources say the timing of the leak is
significant, with DCNS having won a $50 billion tender in April to design a new
submarine fleet for Australia --- beating out German and Japanese rivals. There
is speculation that rivals might be scuttling DCNS’s bid by painting it as
unreliable and insecure.

Even so, the Indian Navy is seriously concerned about the
leak. The Australian says the leaked data includes details of the Indian
Scorpenes’ stealth capabilities, frequencies for intelligence gathering, the
noise levels of the submarines at various speeds, the diving depths, range and
endurance, magnetic, electro-magnetic and infra-red data, specifications of the
torpedo system, propeller noise specifications and radiated noise levels when
the submarine surfaces. This includes sensitive capabilities that an enemy would
find useful in formulating tactics to combat the Scorpene.

The first of India’s six Scorpene submarines, a
diesel-electric vessel named INS Kalvari, is currently undergoing sea trials
off Mumbai. Mazagon Dock Ltd, Mumbai (MDL), which is building six vessels with
technology transferred from DCNS, expects the Kalvari will be commissioning
into the navy by the year-end. Over the next three years, the remaining five
Scorpenes will be commissioned and enter active service.

Parrikar says he hopes key Scorpene information might have
been firewalled from the DCNS leaks by being confined to MDL, which is building
the vessels in Mumbai.

Vice Admiral (Retired) Arun Kumar Singh, an Indian Navy
submarine veteran, explains that much of the information in the 22,400 leaked
pages would be commercial information relating to the Scorpene’s operating
characteristics, that DCNS would legitimately share with any navy that
expressed interest in buying the Scorpene.

“An operational disaster, however, would be the leakage of
information relating to the sound that the Scorpene radiates into the water; or
revealing the maximum depth to which the vessel can dive and fire weapons
from”, says Singh.

A submarine’s “audio signature” is like a fingerprint. It is
unique, and allows sensors like those in maritime reconnaissance aircraft to identify
individual submarines, from a bank of “signatures” that navies maintain.

INS Kalvari has not yet done its “noise ranging trials”,
which would pinpoint its audio fingerprint. Until these trials are completed,
there is little possibility of it falling into the wrong hands.

Scorpene submarines are operated by Malaysia and Chile,
while Brazil will also operate them from 2018. The Indian Scorpene is slightly
longer, which would make its audio and magnetic signatures marginally
different.

Interesting, the leak would also be carefully scrutinized by
Pakistan, which has bought three submarines from DCNS --- the Agosta 90B class.
There are several commonalities between the Scorpene and the Agosta 90B,
although the latter incorporates the more sophisticated “air independent
propulsion”.

Tuesday, 23 August 2016

On Monday, Prime Minister (PM) Narendra
Modi made it clear that the road from New Delhi to Srinagar will not run
through Islamabad.

After 42 days of public violence and
separatist demonstrations across the Kashmir Valley, the PM has reached out to
the Kashmiri people, directly, but conditionally.

After meeting Jammu & Kashmir (J&K)
opposition party leaders in New Delhi today, a statement from the PM’s office
said he “emphasized that there has to be dialogue and we need to find a
permanent and lasting solution to the [Kashmir] problem within the framework of
the Constitution.”

Those six words --- “within the framework
of the Constitution” --- rule out territorial give-and-take with Pakistan, or
any settlement that changes the boundary, e.g. one based on recognising the
Line of Control (LoC) --- the current, de facto border.

Even the J&K Constitution, which came
into effect on January 26, 1957, accepts accession to India. Article 3 of that
document states: “Relationship of the State with the Union of India:- The State
of Jammu and Kashmir is and shall be an integral part of the Union of India.”

The PM’s offer keeps the window open for
New Delhi to engage with separatist leaders, but only within the four corners
of the constitution. However, the basic separatist demand is “azaadi”, or
freedom from India.

It remains unclear what form New Delhi’s
outreach towards Kashmir might take, or what its political components might be.
However, former J&K chief minister, Omar Abdullah, stated after the meeting
that the PM accepted that an economic outreach alone “may not resolve the
crisis.”

In contrast to the softening stance towards
Kashmiris, the approach towards Pakistan remains unprecedentedly tough. There
has been no backtracking from the PM’s speech, made a week ago on Independence
Day, which indicated that New Delhi would pin down Pakistan on Pakistan
Occupied Kashmir (POK), Gilgit-Baltistan and Baluchistan.

The PMO’s statement today pointedly
excluded Pakistan, noting that “those who lost their lives during recent
disturbances are part of us, our nation; whether the lives lost are of our
youth, security personnel or police, it distresses us.”

Meanwhile, India-Pakistan relations, already
vitiated by Islamabad’s sustained criticism of India’s handling of demonstrations
in the Valley, are set to plunge further. Islamabad has declared that Prime
Minister Nawaz Sharif would forcefully condemn “state terrorism” by India at
the 71st session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on
September 20-26 in New York.

Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj, who will
head India’s delegation to the UNGA, is preparing to trenchantly criticise
Islamabad’s human rights violations in Baluchistan and Gilgit-Baltistan. She
will also highlight Pakistan’s record as a state sponsor of terrorism.

The PM’s national security and foreign
policy managers make it clear that, in raising these issues on August 15, the
PM has signalled a major Indian policy shift towards Pakistan. “Years of
accommodating Pakistan and promoting the dialogue process has gained India
nothing. Now New Delhi will play on the front foot”, says one insider.

Over the coming days, it will become clear
whether the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government has shifted from its
position --- repeatedly voiced since July 9, when violence erupted a day after
popular Hizbul Mujahideen commander, Burhan Wani, was killed by the J&K
Police in an encounter in South Kashmir --- that only a handful of Kashmiris
were protesting, and that too at Pakistan’s behest.

In fact, numerous media reports have
indicated that Kashmiri protesters appear to be acting largely on their own,
with no clear leadership discernible.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh first blamed
Pakistan on his visit to Srinagar the week after violence broke out; by Modi in
his first public pronouncement after a month of rioting; during an all-party
meeting a fortnight ago; and, most recently on Sunday, when Finance Minister
Arun Jaitley declared at a rally near Jammu that public protests were a “new
phase of Pakistan-sponsored war being fought by its stooges.”

Friday, 19 August 2016

An army
officer corps already factionalised along the lines of regiments and arms, is
now embarrassed by infighting amongst their chiefs. General Dalbir Singh, the
current chief of army staff (COAS), has submitted an affidavit to the Supreme
Court accusing a predecessor, General VK Singh, of attempting to scuttle his
promotion with "mysterious design, mala fide intent and to arbitrarily
punish" him for professionally invalid reasons. Making this allegation sensational
is the fact that VK Singh is currently a union minister in the Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP) led government.

The
confrontation between Generals Singh and Singh is not new. Its roots lie in VK
Singh’s tenure as army chief, when he battled the defence ministry, even
dragging it to the Supreme Court in an attempt to have his date of birth
amended by one year, thereby gaining an additional year as army chief. In an
elaborate conspiracy theory created at that time, and filed as a separate writ
petition in the apex court by a group suspected of links to VK Singh, it was
alleged that a previous army chief, General JJ Singh, had “fixed” VK Singh’s
date of birth incorrectly to have him retire a year early, so that he would be
succeeded as army chief by an alleged JJ Singh protégé, General Bikram Singh.

Adding a
communal dimension to this unsavoury wrangling, the writ petition painted this
as a Sikh conspiracy, alleging the involvement of the then prime minister
Manmohan Singh, other Sikh luminaries and even the Shiromani Gurdwara
Prabandhak Committee. Both JJ Singh and Bikram Singh are Sikhs.

This battle
to change his date of birth went badly for VK Singh. The Supreme Court
dismissed his petition, as also the linked petition alleging a Sikh conspiracy
to fashion a Sikh “line of succession”. However, VK Singh struck back. Before handing
over the top job to Bikram Singh on June 1, 2012, VK Singh issued a “show cause
notice” to Dalbir Singh, who he considered close to Bikram Singh, blaming him
for a rogue intelligence operation by a unit under his command.

As army
chief, Bikram Singh wasted no time clearing Dalbir Singh of that charge, making
him eligible to take over one of the six field armies --- essential for
becoming army chief. On June 15, 2012, fifteen days after Bikram Singh took
over as chief, Dalbir Singh was appointed to command the eastern army.

This,
however, was challenged by another senior general. Lieutenant General Ravi
Dastane petitioned that, on May 31, 2012 --- the day VK Singh, and
another army commander, Lt Gen Shankar Ghosh, retired, the top two eligible
lieutenant generals --- Lt Gen Sanjiv Chachra and Dastane himself --- should
have been appointed army commanders. Dalbir Singh, while senior to both Chachra
and Dastane, was ineligible because of his “show cause notice” issued by VK
Singh.

However, while elevating Chachra to command the western
army, the defence ministry left the second vacancy unfilled, pending a decision
on Dalbir Singh’s “show cause notice”, which was dismissed on June 8. Dastane’s
petition before the Supreme Court argues that it was improper to effectively
“reserve” an army commander’s vacancy for Dalbir Singh till his case had been
decided.

Dalbir Singh’s controversial affidavit to the Supreme Court this
week relates to Dastane’s petition. He had submitted a similar petition in 2012
to the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT), which rejected Dastane’s plea. Now, as
earlier, Dalbir Singh argues that VK Singh unfairly targeted him, with “a
motivated, biased, arbitrary and malicious intent”.

Amongst
defence watchers, as also amongst the veteran community, there is consternation
at the growing tendency of senior military officers to wash dirty linen in
public and to litigate over adverse promotion decisions. The military’s steep
promotion pyramid, in which only one officer out of a hundred makes it to the
rank of lieutenant generals, ensures that many good officers are superseded
simply because of a lack of vacancies in higher ranks. This was always the
case; what has now changed dramatically is the readiness of superseded officers
to represent against adverse promotion decisions, and even approach court.

This
tendency is exacerbated by the example set by top generals. In 2010, when VK
Singh took over as army chief, he announced that his foremost priority was to
rebuild the army’s “internal health”. Ironically, he ended up deeply dividing the
army. The fallout is being observed even today.

Fortunately,
the political leadership, including the current Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
led government, has remained above the fray. After the United Progressive
Alliance named Dalbir Singh as the next army chief in early 2014, the BJP
accused it of “undue haste”. Yet, the BJP upheld his appointment after it
formed the government, even though VK Singh, now a minister, exercised
influence in the new power structure.

Tuesday, 16 August 2016

Since April 2011, when the Indian Air Force (IAF) shortlisted the Eurofighter
and Rafale for purchase, Swedish company Saab has believed its JAS-39 Gripen
fighter was unfairly eliminated from that globally watched tender for 126
medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA). Similarly, US aerospace giant,
Lockheed Martin, which had offered an F-16 Block 50/52 variant called the Super
Viper, feels hard done by. Yet, one of these companies might still have the
last laugh after the eventual MMRCA winner, Dassault of France, failed to
conclude a contract for the Rafale.

The Gripen NG and the F-16 Block 70 --- improved variants of the fighters
Saab and Lockheed Martin had earlier offered --- are frontrunners in a
truncated replay of the MMRCA contest. Boeing, meanwhile, has repeated its offer
of the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. All three offers are couched in the rubric of
“Make in India”.

Of the original six vendors in the MMRCA race, only Russia’s RAC MiG has
faded away. Dassault continues negotiating with New Delhi, albeit only for 36
Rafales under a government-to-government sale. Eurofighter remains poised on
the sidelines; offering to step in should negotiations with Dassault collapse.

A call to battle

In April 2015, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi ended three years of tortuous
negotiations with Dassault, compensating the French vendor with an order for 36
fighters, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar realised a light fighter would
still be needed to replace the IAF’s retiring MiGs and bolster plummeting
fighter numbers.

On April 13, 2015, Parrikar stated on
Doordarshan TV: “Rafale is not a replacement for MiG-21. LCA [Light Combat
Aircraft] Tejas is a replacement for MiG-21. Or, if we build some other fighter
under “Make in India”… another single engine [fighter] in India, which is
possible, that could be a replacement for the MiG-21.”

For Saab and Lockheed Martin, which both had
single-engine, light fighters to offer, this was a call to battle. And the
Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA), which runs the LCA programme, realised
the Tejas had to come good quickly.

The IAF and ADA wasted no time in
accelerating Tejas’ induction. Since the Tejas Mark II requires the time-consuming
integration of a new engine, it was agreed to induct a stopgap Tejas Mark IA. This
would have four improvements over the Mark I: active electronically scanned
array (AESA) radar to boost air combat capability; an externally-carried
self-protection jammer (SPJ) to blind enemy radar; mid-air refuelling to extend
its range, and tidied-up internals for easier maintenance. The IAF undertook to
order at least 80 Tejas Mark IA fighters.

Saab
makes its play

Meanwhile, Saab prepared a three-point plan
that piggybacks on the Tejas. This has not been formally proposed, but its
strategy is evident from the informal offers made.

First, Saab has offered to manufacture and assemble the Gripen NG in India,
partnering an Indian firm. Ministry insiders say Saab hopes to roll out the
first fighter in 36 months; ramping up quickly to 18 fighters per year. The
Gripen NG’s cost will depend upon how much indigenisation India demands. Building
more components and sub-systems indigenously would naturally raise the cost.

Second, Saab has offered to partner ADA in developing the Tejas Mark IA, focusing
on the four improvements needed. The Gripen NG’s vaunted Selex Galileo Raven
ES-05 AESA radar would be manufactured in India for the Tejas Mark IA and the
Gripen NG. With a 100-degree sweep, this scans a wider cone than any other
current radar.

Third, Saab would help ADA develop its planned fifth-generation (Gen-5)
fighter, the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA). In this, Saab’s capability
is untested, since Europe has no Gen-5 fighter programme. Instead, Saab is part
of a European consortium working on an unmanned stealth aircraft, called the
nEUROn.

Significantly, Saab is silent on the Tejas Mark II --- which would directly
compete with the Gripen NG. Saab’s vision clearly involves bypassing the Tejas
Mark II --- and moving from the Mark IA, to the Gripen NG, to the AMCA.

Jan Widerstrom, Saab India chief, says on the Saab website: “The offer
includes setting up of a full manufacturing facility; transfer of state-of-the-art
technology; setting up of an aerospace eco-system in India; creation of a local
supplier base of ancillary systems; employment of a well-trained Indian
workforce. We would train engineers in Sweden, as we’re doing with Brazilian
engineers right now for the Brazilian Gripen program. We see ourselves as a
catalyst. We will provide India with cutting-edge technology which will
energise India’s aerospace ecosystem.”

A usually reticent Stockholm has thrown its weight behind Saab. Sweden-India
discussions centre on a joint working group (JWG) that meets annually, in
accordance with a 2009 Indo-Swedish defence cooperation agreement. After the
last JWG meeting in Delhi on September 29-30, the two national security
advisors met in October in the first Indo-Swedish “strategic dialogue”. Ramming
home the message, Sweden’s prime minister, Stefan Lofven, travelled to India in
February for the “Make in India” exhibition in Mumbai.

According to a joint release after his meeting with Modi: “The two prime
ministers… agreed that under the rubric of Make in India, cooperation
possibilities between their respective defence industries could be identified
and taken forward appropriately, including in the field of aviation.”

On June 10, IAF boss, Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha, travelled to Saab’s production
facility in Linkoping, Sweden, and test flew the Gripen NG at a Swedish air
base. There is talk of IAF test pilots travelling to Sweden to check out the
fighter.

While the IAF apparently likes the Gripen NG, it does not want to disturb
the Rafale negotiations, which it considers top priority. While not a Gen-5
fighter, the Gripen NG’s data link --- a key element in modern air combat ---
is reputedly the world’s most advanced. Its avionics are built of Gallium Nitride,
which delivers superior performance over conventional Gallium Arsenide
avionics. The Gripen NG carries diverse weaponry from various countries,
including the French Meteor beyond visual range air-to-air missile (BVRAAM),
reputedly the world’s most advanced, with an estimated range of about 150
kilometres. Independent researcher IHS Jane’s, finds the Gripen the cheapest
contemporary fighter to operate.

F-16 Block 70 offer

Going toe-to-toe with Saab, a
characteristically aggressive Lockheed Martin is pushing hard on its offer,
made through the Indo-US Defence Trade and Technology Initiative (DTTI), to shift
its F-16 production line from Fort Worth, Texas to India.

Over the preceding four decades, 4,588 F-16s have been built, in 138
versions, for 27 user countries, the sheer size of that production run making
it a cheap and affordable fighter. But now F-16 orders have dried up, and
Lockheed Martin wants Forth Worth fully turned over to building the thousands
of F-35 Lightening II joint strike fighters (JSFs) on order.

“An Indian F-16 order clearly serves multiple US interests. It would revitalise
the F-16 production chain, which is about to shut down; sell India the 1970s
production line instead of just junking it; allow Fort Worth to focus on
building F-35s; and strengthen defence ties with New Delhi”, notes a senior IAF
officer.

At a media briefing in New Delhi last Friday, Lockheed Martin’s Randy
Howard made it clear that production would be shifted to India only if the IAF
buys the F-16.

Howard talked up the “next generation avionics” of the Block 70 version of
the F-16, but IAF officials are sceptical. Its APG-83 Scalable Agile Beam Radar
(SABR), while a reputed AESA radar, has been built by Northrop Grumman since
2014 for the US and Taiwanese air forces. Nor is the “high speed data network” and
the “upgraded core computer” that Howard advertised noticeably superior to what
is on the older Block 50/52. Analysts wonder what changes justify a new block
number.

Within the IAF, which has for the last four decades, focused its training
and tactics on fighting Pakistan F-16s, there is entrenched resistance to buying
that fighter. Further, the air marshals are certain Washington would never
allow Lockheed Martin to offer the kind of holistic proposal and technology
transfer that Saab has offered.

Assuaging these concerns, Ben Schwartz, who heads aerospace and defence for
the US-India Business Council says: “The F-16 offers would come in as FMS deals
with unprecedented technology transfer and Make-in-India characteristics.
A lot of work has gone into evaluating the level of indigenization – more so
than in any other case that people can recall.” Backing him up, a senior
Pentagon official says: “In US-India negotiations
today, you have to throw away all the assumptions of the past about what
Washington will allow and what it will deny. Don’t assume anything is off the table.”

Boeing officials, who have separately
offered to build the heavy, twin-engine F/A-18E/F Super Hornet in India, say
their “Make in India” beats Lockheed Martin’s. “If India wants an indigenous
aerospace eco-system, it makes no sense to buy an old production line, with all
its inefficiencies. Boeing is offering a fighter that will remain in service
through the 2040s, and possibly the 2050s, far longer than the F-16, and
offering to build it on a brand new Indian production line”, says one official.

Boeing’s most powerful argument for the Super Hornet is perhaps its utility
for the Indian Navy. After worrying questions from the Comptroller and Auditor
General over the Russian MiG-29K’s ability to operate off a carrier, there is
talk of the need to hedge India’s bets for the second indigenous aircraft
carrier, INS Vishal.

With three offers in hand, the defence
ministry has not yet taken the initiative, nor issued a single “request for
information” (RFI) or “request for proposals” (RFP). New Delhi has not divulged
whether it wants competitive tendering, or a government-to-government strategic
acquisition. The long-promised policy for nominating Indian “strategic partners
(SP) remains in limbo, leaving foreign vendors with little idea about who could
be their Indian partner.

Says a senior executive from one of the
vendor companies: “It may well emerge that New Delhi is using discussions with
Saab, Lockheed and Boeing as a stalking horse for the Rafale negotiation,
putting pressure on Dassault with the range of options that India has. Until
there is clarity, we can only continue groping in the dark.”

[ENDS]

Gripen NG

F-16 Block 70

Cost

Estimated
to be about 25 per cent costlier than F-16

Large
numbers already built make F-16 highly affordable

Combat
experience

New fighter, not yet combat tested

Extensively flown in combat, proven worldwide over decades

Design
maturity

New aircraft, at early stage of design life

1970s design, reaching end of design life

Aerodynamic
performance

Highly agile fighter, with new F-414 engine

Early model F-16s were superbly agile, but Block 70
fighters, with conformal fuel tanks, are less aerodynamic